Survival of pure disk galaxies over the last 8 billion years

TL;DR

This study shows that pure disk galaxies have remained structurally intact over the last 8 billion years, with their light profiles unchanged, suggesting they avoided major mergers and evolved mainly through smooth gas accretion.

Contribution

It provides evidence that a significant fraction of pure disk galaxies have survived without major mergers for over 8 billion years, challenging hierarchical galaxy formation models.

Findings

Pure disk galaxies constitute 15-18% of galaxies at 0.4<z<1.0 and locally.

Their light profiles are well described by a single exponential function.

These galaxies have increased in mass and size but maintained their structural profiles.

Abstract

Pure disk galaxies without any bulge component, i.e., neither classical nor pseudo, seem to have escaped the affects of merger activity inherent to hierarchical galaxy formation models as well as strong internal secular evolution. We discover that a significant fraction (15 - 18 %) of disk galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field (0.4 < z < 1.0) as well as in the local Universe (0.02 < z < 0.05) are such pure disk systems (hereafter, PDS). The spatial distribution of light in these PDS is well described by a single exponential function from the outskirts to the centre and appears to have remained intact over the last 8 billion years keeping the mean central surface brightness and scale-length nearly constant. These two disk parameters of PDS are brighter and shorter, respectively, than of those disks which are part of disk galaxies with bulges. Since the fraction of PDS as well as their profile defining parameters do not change, it indicates that these galaxies have not witnessed either major mergers or multiple minor mergers since z~1. However, there is substantial increase in their total stellar mass and total size over the same time range. This suggests that smooth accretion of cold gas via cosmic filaments is the most probable mode of their evolution. We speculate that PDS are dynamically hotter and cushioned in massive dark matter halos which may prevent them from undergoing strong secular evolution.